Dr. Chabay was selected as the first Erna & Victor Hasselblad Professor of Public Learning and Understanding of Science (PLUS)–an endowed Chair shared between Chalmers University of Technology and Göteborg University in Sweden. He conducts research on how the public’s ideas about science and technology are learned, processed, used and changed. His research focuses on 1) how models and metaphors are used and understood in communicating science and science-related social issues, 2) verbal and non-verbal measures of public engagement with science, 3) new types of role-playing computer games to study how adolescent––especially girls–engage in science, and 4) science communication between policy makers, scientists and citizens. After a PhD in chemical physics from the University of Chicago, Dr. Chabay worked as a researcher at NIST. In 1982 he took a sabbatical to serve as associate director of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. The New Curiosity Shop®, which he founded and directed, was a workshop and consultancy where Chabay and his staff designed and produced innovative hands-on science exhibits for over 230 institutions in 16 countries. He also served on the Leadership and Planning Group for NASA's Office of Space Science, directing a team that designed an innovative web-based Science Education Framework.